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July 31, 2005

The Cowsills on "Playboy After Dark"

They woulda been The Partridge Family if the producers hadn't wanted to fire their mom and replace her with Shirley Jones. Susan is still making records and playing gigs. John is playing drums in the Beach Boys Band. I have a great Dwight Twilley MTV concert where Susan and John are in the Twilley Band (Susan & Dwight were a couple for many years.) I opened for the Cowsills at Maxwells in the early/mid 90's and they were great. Susan signed my poster "Spike will you marry me" (!). I guess one of the Cowsills married a Playboy Bunny... The Cowsills-Playboy After Dark.movThe first song is pretty corny ("Jesus Christ Superstar" I think) but they really rock out on the 2nd tune. Susan is an ultra hip dancer.

Wow, that's great. There's a moment during the second number (around 4'10" in), where the camera catches Ma Cowsill looking on with a "why are they rocking out?" expression on her face.
Susan is one of the coolest people ever.

Great find, Spike! Kind of dorky of the Cowsills to opt to wear such corny get-ups like those suits with the clownish red bow ties when we see the back-up singers are sporting afros, beads and striped bel bottoms. I mean, that was around the time where the Beatles were in full beards and Paul Revere & The Raiders stopped wearing Minute Men suits and started sporting psyche gear. And wasn't that a gas to see the little Cowsill girl groovin' with the *out-of-sight* black back-up singer? Very cool.

And damn! I'd better stay after school and bone up on my pop culture studies! I had no idea a Cowsill married a Playboy bunny. Does anyone know if she actually posed (nude) for the magazine or if she was just a bunny at one of the clubs or was she just part of the show's background bunnies?

FYI, the Cowsills did indeed put out a CD of their 90's "power pop" tunes. It's incredible and deserves to be heard. It's called "Global" and can be purchased online at www.robinrecords.com or you can get there from their website www.cowsill.com.
BUY THIS CD! You can hear samples of the whole thing on the Robin Records website.

What isn't readily available on CD or DVD these days in Susan's work with Vickie Peterson as "The Psycho Sisters." Probably had a lot to do with the ad hoc nature of the gigs they played -- since they were also doing a lot of outside projects at the time -- as the two are wont to do. This included, of course, their work with the Drifters.

One "Sisters" 7 inch single was released ("Timberline" -- in 1992) but the gals have supposedly continued to pair up from time to time to finally release a debut album. Dunno, though, that news has been around a while. And there's always that need for that latest tres chic night gown to wear on stage for any Sisters' reunion. Probably gives the roadies fits just trying to find a decent one in the storefront window after Frederick's just closed.

You can check out this info and more at on this Psycho Sisters fan page:

There's a list of tracks -- a few of which they'd written together -- and covers of their own stuff written for their respective bands through the early and mid-90s. This includes, of course, The Bangles, Drifters -- even one Cowsills tune. A CD release of most or all of this stuff would be impressive.

Vickie Peterson married John Cowsill a couple of years ago. [ Speaking of Fleetwood Mac....]